FORESTRY AND THE NEW FOREST 



or laid under ban during the twenty years that elapsed between the 

 Conquest and the survey for Domesday Book, and which included the 

 date of the formation of the New Forest (1079). 



Even this, however, did not go anything like far enough to satisfy 

 the personal tastes and the feudal intentions of the Conqueror. Deter- 

 mined to carry out in the strictest manner the principles of the feudal 

 law, he held that as hunting was the pastime of kings the right of the 

 chase and of following and taking all manner of beasts of venery belonged 

 solely to the king, and could only be exercised by those obtaining the 

 royal license through special favour. All the animals included under 

 game were ' ownerless property ' (bona vacantia) and were therefore the 

 property of the king. By royal prerogative he consequently had the 

 right of pursuit and capture anywhere, and he could grant to great nobles 

 or special favourites privileges relating to the chase in whole or in part. 



Fearless, ruthless, and determined, William resolved to introduce 

 new forest laws of far greater severity than the old English game laws, 

 and to carry them out with stringency. But the evidence of history 

 proves that even he shrank from boldly making new enactments in the 

 shape of forest laws so stringent as to create grave discontent among his 

 own Norman followers as well as to exasperate the Saxon landholders and 

 drive them headlong to acts of sheer despair. So he determined to 

 gain his end by fraud. Thus it came about that among the archives at 

 Winchester a document was found purporting to be a Charta Canuti or 

 charter of Canute the Dane, granted at a parliament held there in 1018 

 A.D., during the first year of his reign, in terms of which the sole and 

 exclusive right to pursue and take animals of the chase was vested in the 

 king and in those obtaining such privilege from him. This charter 

 having been discovered, its provisions were merely carried out more 

 regularly than had previously been done ; that was all. And the 

 ' afforestation ' of the New Forest took place under the authority of this 

 document. The authenticity of Canute's statute remained for centuries 

 unquestioned till Lord Coke raised doubts about it, while the subsequent 

 researches of Stubbs and Liebermann have shown that Coke's suspicions 

 were justified, and that this supposititious charter was nothing but a Nor- 

 man forgery intended solely to make what were new and very harsh and 

 cruel Norman laws seem to be merely the stricter application of the 

 existing English laws instead of the innovation they really were. Thus 

 Canute was made to declare * in the Danish tongue ... in English 

 this ' 1 :- 



I will and graunt that each one shalbe worthie or such venerie as he by Hunt- 

 ing can take eyther in the playnes or in the woods within his own fee or dominion, 

 but each man shal abstaine from my venerie in every place where I will that my 

 beasts shall have firme peace and quietness, upon paine to forfeit as much as a man 

 may forfet. 



By right of conquest William I. acquired not only the demesne 

 lands which had belonged to Edward the Confessor, but also the estates 



1 See Manwood, A Treatise oj the Forrest Latves (i 598), fol. 1 3. 

 H 417 53 



